Sunday, February 19, 2012

Everything's Better With Bacon!

Today the local chapter of the Loyal Order of Moose (of which my father is one of the Mucky-Mucks) ran a pancake breakfast, as they do every 3rd Sunday of the month. Dad reminded me a couple of days ago, as well as mentioning it to Handsome yesterday.

This morning, hungry, I asked Handsome if he wanted to go go the Moose Lodge for breakfast or if he'd rather I just made pancakes. he was watching television at the time, but he threw a thumb sideways at me and said "Your pancakes."

"There's going to be lots of bacon at the Moose..." I hinted.

"Yes!" he said.

"Yes, what?" I said.

"Yes bacon!" he said.

"So, it's breakfast at the Moose?" I said.

"Yes!"

It's like I've said before. Everything is better with bacon.

So off to the Moose we went. We were greeted on the way in as my father's son and grandson, I payed my charge at the door (Handsome is still young enough to eat for free - Booya!), and we claimed a table near the door. After working our way through the breakfast line, we sat down to eat.

True to his word, Handsome's plate contained nothing but bacon.

Now, I was seated with my back to the door, but Handsome was sitting across from me facing the door and the line of people waiting to pay and eat. After a minute I noticed that rather than eating Handsome was staring past me toward the door.

People watching, I assumed, and turned mt attention back to my food.

A minute or two, Handsome was still not eating. I realized he was not merely staring past me, but past me and upward, at something behind and above me. I turned to look, following his line of sight to the space above the entry door. The space that was filled with the huge stuffed moose head mounted on the wall.

"What are you looking at?" I said.

"The moose," he said. "It's big!"

"Yep," I said. "Moose are pretty big animals. Huge, up close."

I kept eating, but Handsome kept staring.

"You going to eat that?" I said, pointing at the bacon still lying on his plate.

"It's looking at me," he replied.

"What?"

Handsome was rocking in his chair, leaning from side-to-side, staring up at the moose on the wall.

"It's looking at me," he repeated. "The eyes keep following me."

"Yup," I said. "They'll do that."

Now, I could have told him to ignore the moose and finish his breakfast, but there were more and more children showing up as he sat there, and some of them were starting to run about and play. Plus there was that plate of bacon. The allure, I knew, would prove too great; it was only a matter of time.

A minute later Handsome was turned sideways in his chair, eyeballing the running children. Almost of its own volition his hand stole out to the bacon plate to retrieve a crisp, tasty slice.

Then another.

And another.

A minute later he was out there running and playing with the other children, his plate lying on the table where he'd left it covered with nothing but a little bacon grease.